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I am looking for information and any images which support the date when the early type of iron downdraft 8 port heads cast by the Yorkshire Casting Co (casting symbol on the head) were first produced and sold or "available" to those with connections. By early I mean the number following 707 on the casting is less than 1000. For clarity I do not mean first just sold commercially.

Can anyone define the earliest record of the use of this particular head in competition - not just in minis but in any formula?

Also what is the first recorded date of TJ or Lucas FI being seen fitted to this head in any formula?

Any help with documents and images to support any dates appreciated.

Thanks.

Hi
I own 8 port heads with the following numbers

707 280
Documents and pictures support the use of this head in late 1966 to 1968
It is an early version with no front core plugs

707 1172
Pictures from Early 1968 support the use of this head from 1968 to 1969
It is an early version with no front core plugs


707 1280 is a bare casting of the very last type produced for BMC before the Arden head was standardised by ST and homologated, I believe in 1972

I was unaware that there was information to indicate that the number following 707 was the casting sequential number as I have seen pictures of heads, in different ownership, all with 1280 following the 707.

I have one picture to suggest that the TJ system was in use in late 1966, but nothing earlier I'm afraid.
As for Lucas the earliest picture I have is presumed to be 1968, I have one of 1969 with a later throttle body version which looks like the F1 system in use at that time.

Not sure if any of this helps, or how accurate it is..... but you are welcome to the information.

I'm fairly sure the Cooper Car Company had only just got hold of these heads by the tail end of 1966, I've never seen any evidence of their use on anything prior to that and the earliest photo I've seen of one on a Mini dates to March 1967. I know a number of people have asked this question over the years with a view to pre '66 racing but as yet no evidence of earlier use seems to have materialised of one sort or another.

Good luck with the car Marc, very jealous !

Pete

trevorhp wrote:H
707 1280 is a bare casting of the very last type produced for BMC before the Arden head was standardised by ST and homologated, I believe in 1972

FWIW, The Weslake was homologated ["valid from"] on January 1 st. 1970.

just checked my tj metering units two dated 1969 one at 1970 one at 1971 hope that helps

The 8 port head was made for the BTCC or whatever it was called in the 60s when it went to group 5 in 67(?) from iirc group2. The rules allowed free cylinder heads and wheels were free as long as they fitted under a 2" wide wheel arch extension and other mods. This has brought about the sale of wheel arches in various groups now with group 7 wheel arches for minis. Gp7 was sports racing cars the likes of MaClaren M8s. Lola T70s and the one off Porsche 917 (!)for Can Am racing.

My mistake on the homologation date .... shouldn't try to rely on memory any more.

Interestingly, both the cast iron Weslake/BMC/Morris head and the alloy 'Arden' head were homologated at the same time for Gp 2 and looking again at the pictures on the Homologation documents, submitted to the MSA, the iron head does appear to be the later type (707 1280) with the 4 additional core plugs and the extended section on the front face. Which fits in nicely with the timeline.
Trevor

I,m sure there is something in a copy of Autosport from 1966 about an iron 8 port head being used on a privateer car before CCC got them .
John Cooper was not happy

British saloons went to group5 for the 1966 season , the CCC used a 5 port and a 45 DCOE I believe. As heads were free they would not need to be homologated . This only happened in 1970 so they could be used in group2 and should have only have happened if they had made 1000.

Early CCC weslake 8 ports used 1 1/4" throttle bodies ( as fitted to my car ) , later cars went to slide throttles . There is also a picture of a Britax car ( 1969 ) with 1 3/4" throttle bodies on a fabricated manifold .

The pre 1969 Abingdon rally engines seamed to use throttle bodies ( with a cast 707 part number ). Factory race engine,s used in 1969 and the Tour de France engine were on slide throttles but of a different design to the CCC / Downton ones.

All the above were used this Lucas injection

The 1968 Vita 8 ports seam to have used a weslake type head supplied by BMC and TJ injection with a short throttle body made by TJ but of an almost identical design to the BMC 707 type used by Abingdon . Trevor will have more info on this .

All the original heads I have seen have inlet ports of about 1 1/4 , if you open them out to big you have to move the induction mounting holes further apart .

As development was ongoing there were probably many one off parts for these engine,s . Due to the angle of the inlet ports heads and inlets would be ported together and would no be interchangeable .

251 ENG wrote:I,m sure there is something in a copy of Autosport from 1966 about an iron 8 port head being used on a privateer car before CCC got them .
John Cooper was not happy

I also remember that and wish I'd have scanned it but I do remember thinking it was referring to Steve Neal and / or John Lewis who both used Arden heads well before Coopers got their hands on the Weslake. Either way it's fair to say that had Weslake 8 ports been available for development pre 1967 that Coopers would have cerainly been trying them out which they didn't do as far as I know until early 1967.
The change to Gp 5 for 1966 wasn't that well planned as I remember reading or popular for that matter. The development of a Weslake head just wouldn't have been seen as necessary before those rules were planned to be changed late in '65 so I can only conclude no Weslake 8 port existed pre 1966 in any shape or form.

Anyone on hear got a set of 1966 Autosports ?

Possibly........I know the current editor and will ask if they have '66 in the archive and if it's indexed!!
I can also ask Steve who I am sure will remember '66 and all that good stuff.
tp

From Autosport's report of the Oulton Park Gold Cup, August 1966. :


"Up to 1300 cc Race
In practice John Rhodes had shaken everybody with the speed of his works 1293 Mini Cooper S, and the well established Superspeed Anglias of Mike Young and Chris Craft, having had trouble with their latest downdraught aspirated engines, elected to run their more conventional 130 bhp sidedraught motors instead.
At the start Mike Young was first away leading into Old Hall from John Rhodes, Steve Neal (Arden Mini Cooper S) and team-mate Chris Craft. But before completion of even a single lap Rhodes, who had been timed a t 100 mph on the straight, forced his works Cooper into the lead.
But Chris Craft after a mediocre start in his Anglia was really having a go and by the second lap he had passed not only his team-mate Young but also the leader. John Fitzpatrick in the 1000 cc Broadspeed Anglia, fitted with substantially modified and angled Holbay motor, was already dominating the 1000 cc class and had pulled out a good lead over his nearest rival, the Alan Fraser Imp of Bernard Unett.
The chopping and changing going on all down the filed was nobodies business. Steve Neal and John Handley, the latter in the second works Mini-Cooper S, were having a great dice just ahead of Bob Smith and Gordon Spice in another pair of Mini Coopers.
By the fifth lap Young had forced his way into second place but less than 2 seconds covered all three. The next time round Rhodes was back in front again, and so it went on. Bob Smith called at the pits with a broken gear lever, letting Spice up to join battle with Handley and Neal, who had swapped places. John Lewis was having problems with his new BMC crossflow head and fuel injection and in trying to make up some time had several nasty moments.
Meanwhile Craft continued to lead and his team-mate Young had repassed Rhodes to make it 1-2 for the Superspeed cars. The picture looked rosy for Fords as Fitzpatrick was now miles ahead of the Fraser Imps. Fitz's team-mate Anita Taylor had split the Imps until a burst engine oil seal has showered her rear tyres with oil and caused her to spin.
By half distance Craft, who was driving on top form, had succeeded in opening up a 3.6 seconds lead but Young was still being pressed very hard by Rhodes. Steve Neal had retired the Arden Mini with a distinct lack of gears and Bernard Unett lost his electrics when the condenser fell off. Nick Brittan's car was the only Imp to go through untroubled, Calcutt having piston trouble and Bill McGovern suffering overheating.
The three leaders got very close together in the closing stages and there was great excitement when with only two laps to go Rhodes, driving right on the ragged edge, passed Young for second place. On the final lap Young tried hard to regain his position but did not quite make it, finishing a fraction behind. The 1000 cc class went to Fitzpatrick who was nearly a minute ahead of Brittan at the finish despite repeated signals to slow down from Ralph Broad."


This is the earliest reference I have found over the years and seems to refer to a Weslake. I may even have a pic of the car if I have look. The story of John Cooper being 'not amused' was probably about Steve Neal beating Rhodes and Handley at the Silverstone GP in 1967 with an Arden 8 port.

Magic stuff Pete, I have also sent a pm to Matt Neal with a question for Steve.

Ginger Devlin might know, I'll find out though he might not be able to pin down a date. Alot of these characters that are left, or should I say the few, don't have the greatest memories which is understandable ! I'm only 47 and I can't remember what I did last week !

Thanks to all who have posted - some very helpful information I have not seen published elsewhere.

My head has a different casting number (but has the 707 prefix) to all of those mentioned so far and is of the early type casting.

It is interesting to understand this history and time line in relation to the use of the 8 port head in Appendix C (2 seat racing cars) during the mid sixties.

Were there any other types of 8 port head that predated the earliest form of the works cast iron downdraft head? (sorry some of these questions must have been asked many times before but I can not find a definitive answer!). What is the very first date that the Arden 8 port became available to anyone (not necessarily commercially for sale) - would be interesting to know.

Great race report Pete - I think that race is the International Gold Cup meeting on 17th Sept 1966. Will be interesting to see what other information can be uncovered.

Pics of the Gold Cup race are here:

http://www.mikehaywardcollection.com/ca ... ld-cup.htm

Regards

M

Well done Pete.

I think the bit about John Cooper may be in the front of the mag and not in the race report .

Never heard of the bloke and how did he get that kit before the factory teams ?

251 ENG wrote:Well done Pete.

I think the bit about John Cooper may be in the front of the mag and not in the race report .

Never heard of the bloke and how did he get that kit before the factory teams ?

A very good question and the reason I thought the head being referred to in that report was Arden initially. I reckon Coopers probably had them late '66 but wouldn't have dreamt of using them until they were fully developed and reliable. Not so important with privateers like Neal who did have problems with Jim's initially but a factory team like Coopers that were used to finishing and finishing well up would have needed time for development. I know little about John Lewis other than he was very competative at this time even before the 8 port arrived. His cars were red and black and I suspect Downton powered. I'm trying to find out more and am asking a few drivers etc if they remember him using a Weslake or whether anyone else used them in '66. I'm pretty sure Jeff Goodliff would know when they first appeared as may Jim Barham who I can contact but I suspect they were only made available to the select few, in fact you'd have thought BMC would have insisted !

I have it in the back of my mind that private owner/ club racers had their 8 port iron heads supplied by Downton and probably the engines built by them. Thus the heads being fitted and tested by the Downton entered/ prepared car would seem logical. Downton at that time frame supplied prepared heads for the works rally minis.

The Arden alloy head was a completely seperate private project personally financed by Steve Neal himself. iirc there is an article in Motorsport in the late 60s on the project.

A lot of these characters that are left, or should I say the few, don't have the greatest memories which is understandable.

In a lot of cases its not really a case of having a bad memory its simply a case of when these events were happening they weren't really taking notice of minute inconsequential details that people chew over at great length 50 years after the event. When these guys were racing back in the 60's they were more bothered about next weekend than next century & as a consequence decent, accurate source material than would be suitable for accurately pinning dates down like diaries etc are very, very thin on the ground.

Is there anyone here who can accurately remember exactly what they were doing 23 years ago today?

PS. That report is a brilliant find Pete!

heres an interesting article, i dont know the exact date or publication, but 1972ish i guess








check out the prices in the final page!!!!






can email it if anyone wants to make it bigger etc